


waters deep

by kahlfin



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Degrading Language, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Rough Oral Sex, Sexual Coercion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:27:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23136910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kahlfin/pseuds/kahlfin
Summary: Ludinus's touch strays down Essek’s neck, then settles at his throat. Presses.Essek sinks to his knees. It is strange, almost unnatural, to see this proud, arrogant man acquiesce so easily. He is without his usual cloak. He looks smaller without it. He is not much taller than Jester when he’s not floating, Caleb remembers.Caleb knows where this is going. It is familiar. He wants to break from Frumpkin, to close his eyes to this. He cannot.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast, Ludinus Da'leth/Essek Thelyss
Comments: 39
Kudos: 338





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please take care and mind the tags, folks.
> 
> For the prompt: _So Essek is handsome. That's well established...what if, when Caleb spied through Frumpkin, instead of just seeing what he did in canon, he also saw the Martinet pressuring Essek into doing...physical favors. Maybe it's established that this has been ongoing and pretty much constant while Essek is there in this mission, acting as a bedwarmer basically._

“I want to know what is happening on that ship,” Beauregard says, nodding towards Ludinus Da’leth and Lord Thain, and Caleb agrees. 

There are too many mysteries surrounding these talks, and he does not like it. The wheels are in motion, and there is perhaps little they can do to influence the outcome at this point, but he wants to know.

Beau takes his hand on her shoulder and gives it a squeeze, then guides him to a corner behind a shed on the docks.

“Listen, stay here so you’ll be hidden, and it doesn’t look weird while you’re doing your Frump-o-vision thing. Yell if you need anything, okay? We’ll be just around the corner, being a distraction.”

Caleb nods. “You are very good at that.”

She and Fjord immediately start discussing fish and the beauty of the sea very loudly. It’s a good distraction.

Caleb drops into Frumpkin’s vision, letting the lapping of the waves against the docks fall away. Frumpkin scrambles around the ship. The two figures move from the gundeck towards the passengers’ quarters at the back. Caleb nudges Frumpkin, and he follows them. 

Caleb aims at a window on the outside, guessing by the direction that the two figures took. It is closed, but if Frumpkin presses close, he can see well enough into the room. He nudges Frumpkin to wedge his little cat-monkey fingers between the frame and the side of the ship. His fingers are agile and strong, and the window to the quarters inches open a crack. Enough to hear inside. 

The quarters are large for a ship, and filled with fine furniture, most of it bolted to the floor for a sea voyage. Instead of a suspended hammock, there is a high-sided bunk with fine linens. Caleb glimpses a cabinet of labelled jars that might be spell components.

The Martinet and Desran Thain enter. Thain closes the door soundlessly behind them. 

“I couldn’t help but notice your discomfort,” Ludinus says. He raises an eyebrow.

“I—I did not expect to see them. I did not know they would be coming directly here,” Thain says. His voice is unsteady. Strange. He paces towards the window and looks out. Caleb tells Frumpkin to press himself closely to the ship. After a moment, Thain turns back. They pass unnoticed, he thinks.

“Friends of yours?” Ludinus says lightly. Almost mocking. His fingers trail over the desk anchored in the corner. “I understand. But it is extremely important that we enforce and control the exchange of the prisoners and the beacon.”

“I agree.”

“We each have what we want. And you are free to never speak to us again, after this,” Ludinus says with a wave of his hand. His body is angled in front of the door, boxing Thain into the room.

“It’s taken a lot of effort to ensure that the tracks have been covered and no one undeserving is hurt,” Thain says. “I want no part in this, once this is done.”

“A shame. I’ve found that I quite enjoy your company.”

The Martinet puts a proprietary hand under Dezran Thain’s chin and tilts his head from side to side. He hums. 

“The disguise is handsome enough, but I think I prefer your other face,” Ludinus says.

There is a breath, two. Desran Thain’s features fade to reveal plum-dark skin, high cheekbones. Essek. 

Something surges in his chest, and Caleb resists the urge to pull out from Frumpkin’s sight in his panic. He has to stay. He has to know.

“Ah. There we go. Much prettier,” Ludinus says. “We are always told that drow are monstrous and deformed, but you’re quite lovely. A very nice bone structure. More delicate than most.”

It is strange, the way that Essek neither presses into his touch nor shies away from it. 

“I’ve seen your rag-tag charges around a lot lately. No, your friends, you said. Imagine that, a cold thing like you with friends. It’s almost hard to believe.”

Essek makes a soft noise. “Yes.” 

Ludinus pauses. “How unexpected. You _do_ care for them. You’ve put yourself in a difficult situation, haven’t you? Have you told them about your, ah, research partners?”

“No,” Essek said, quick. Almost desperate. “I haven’t.”

“Well, that’s something. They’re all nosy and unpredictable enough to cause trouble for you and for us.”

“They’ve got nothing to do with this.”

Ludinus raises an eyebrow. “Do they? They have their fingers in almost every pie here, I think. But they’ve given me no reason yet to escort them from the bakery, so to speak. They’ve proven themselves useful, if meddling. I’m happy to leave them be, unless they give me reason to remove them from the picture. ” He chucks Essek’s chin. “Unless you give me reason.”

His touch strays down Essek’s neck, then settles at his throat. Presses. 

Essek sinks to his knees. It is strange, almost unnatural, to see this proud, arrogant man acquiesce so easily. He is without his usual cloak. He looks smaller without it. He is not much taller than Jester when he’s not floating, Caleb remembers.

Caleb knows where this is going. It is familiar. 

He wants to break from Frumpkin, to close his eyes to this. He cannot.

“This should all go smoothly, if no one interferes. I hope it does. We all have so much to lose, yes?”

Ludinus shrugs off his ornate robes. He pushes down his fine wool hose, baring himself. Wraps his hand around himself to encourage the rise of his cock. Caleb swallows against his rising gorge.

He needn’t keep watching. It feels ugly and debasing to see Essek thus, traitor or not. Like thick, dirty oil on his skin. But it is vital to find out what exactly Essek is doing. 

They can’t interfere, not without knowing what they’re getting into. Especially if Essek isn’t moving to extricate himself from the situation—if interfering would sign both Essek’s death warrant and theirs.

Ludinus cups his hand around the back of Essek’s neck and guides Essek’s mouth to his cock. It is a steady, unyielding push, and Ludinus is large compared to Essek. Essek’s lips are stretched wide around him, his breath coming in short, uncontrolled pants through his nose. His eyes are wide, blinking quickly, and Caleb wonders if he’s trying to calm himself, to remain steady.

Ludinus’s hands are impersonal as he adjusts Essek’s posture to allow him to slot into Essek’s throat. Essek makes a choked, panicked noise, but Ludinus doesn’t pull back, his hand holding firm to the nape of Essek’s neck. 

“There we are. Shh, no need to make a fuss about it,” he says. “We both know you can take it, yes?”

Ludinus stays there for a long moment before drawing back, letting his cock slip from Essek’s lips. Essek coughs and gasps for air, but barely gets a moment of breath before Ludinus pushes him onto his cock once again, holding Essek open with his thumb at the corner of his mouth. 

“Lovely,” Ludinus says, his voice heavy and delighted. He fucks in and out of Essek’s mouth in a casual, almost insultingly offhand rhythm, careless but for the fact that he always moves deep enough to set Essek to choking. 

He pushes deep into Essek’s mouth and stays there once again, hips flush to Essek’s lips. One of his hands holds Essek in place, and the other trails down to spread over Essek’s throat. He shifts his hips shallowly in and out. It takes Caleb a moment to realize that he’s feeling his cock in the column of Essek’s throat. Gods. He wants to throw himself out of Frumpkin’s vision, feels his gorge rise once again, but pushes it back down.

“Give me your hand,” Ludinus says, rough with lust. 

Essek raises his hand warily, still breathing shallow and panicky. Ludinus takes it and places it against Essek’s own throat. 

“There you are. Do you feel that?” 

Essek shudders all over and makes a lost noise. Caleb wonders if it’s horror, if it’s disgust, at Ludinus, or perhaps at himself. At what he’s become. It is a familiar emotion.

Ludinus pulls back from Essek’s mouth at last, leaving him gasping for air. He is a mess, his lips swollen and his chin slick from spit and fluids. 

His silence is disquieting.

Ludinus shifts, and Essek lets his mouth hang open, his eyes resigned.

Ludinus laughs and nudges Essek’s mouth shut with a finger under his jaw, his thumb passing over Essek’s lips.

“No, thank you, you sweet, sharp thing. I have other plans, and this old man doesn’t have your vitality.”

Even Frumpkin’s vision is sharp enough to see Essek’s ears flush.

Ludinus pats Essek on the shoulder and turns away towards the bed, divesting himself of his clothes. Caleb wonders at the way that he would turn his back on Essek so easily. Essek must have his components on him, and he knows from their past interactions that it takes a matter of seconds to conjure a gravity well strong enough to crush a body.

It’s chilling to see not even a hint of arcane light spark at Essek’s fingertips. Instead, he stands and pulls off his clothes, perfunctory and quick, and Caleb knows that this is not the first time that he’s done this, not even the second. That what they have over him must be powerful indeed. 

It is strange to see Essek without his many layers of flowing cloth, his feet bare on the wooden deck. He stands naked, and comes to Ludinus when he beckons him over, like a dog. Caleb feels sick. 

Ludinus lays back and pulls Essek over him. His fingertips dip to Essek’s ass and press in.

“Oh, did you make yourself ready for this? You’re too clever by half. You’re beginning to know me too well. Or were you planning to whore yourself out at this party, to see if you could gain more research funding by spreading your pretty legs?” Ludinus sounds almost fond, teasing. 

He is apparently satisfied with what he finds, because he pats Essek’s hip and guides him to his cock. Caleb can’t see Essek’s shadowed expression. Essek grasps Ludinus’s cock and tips his hips towards it, pushing himself back. 

It looks like a struggle to take him, like he’s slightly too big for comfort. Ludinus makes a considering noise. His fingers hook into Essek’s hole, spreading him open and pulling him back onto his cock. Essek makes a broken animal noise.

Halfway down, Essek’s hips try to jerk back up, but Ludinus’s hands are implacable, guiding him down until Essek is sat fully in his lap. The hand at Essek’s waist drops to stroke the finely-turned spur of Essek’s ankle, then fastens around it like a manacle. Essek is panting, quick and frantic, the sound of barely leashed panic. Caleb wonders if it sounds like desire to the Martinet’s ears. 

“Lovely. I should just keep you around to warm my cock on occasions. It would be uncouth for a diplomatic meeting, but for a casual party affair? A pretty crick on my lap could do wonders for the atmosphere, I think.” 

Essek’s cock is soft against his hip. Ludinus fondles it, rolling his hand against its tender weight, and Essek draws back from him. Caleb wonders if Essek thinks himself a good actor. Perhaps he is, in most circumstances, when he is not in waters deep enough to close above his head. The Martinet is clearly enjoying whatever this is—Essek’s desperate, pale imitation of desire, or Essek’s discomfort, or both. It makes Caleb sick. 

Ludinus pats Essek’s hip, and Essek raises himself on his knees, letting his hips roll back to ride Ludinus.

“Who is it you think of?” Ludinus asks softly. “You’re a solitary creature, but a young thing like you must have eyes for someone.”

“No one,” Essek says.

It’s the first thing he’s said since he was pushed to his knees, and his voice sounds ragged, used.

Ludinus hums. “Your new friends, perhaps? The little unpredictable blue one? Ah, no. The wizard?”

Caleb doesn’t manage to catch the somatic movements before he sees his mirror image replace Ludinus’s form. 

Essek jolts back.

Ludinus laughs breathlessly. “Oh, I felt that. Look at you tighten around me, you greedy thing.” His hand disappears again, but Caleb can fill in his touch thumbing at the used tenderness of Essek’s hole, testing its tightness. “Truly? Is even a failed wreck of an Empire mage enough to make you spread your legs, betray your own?” 

Essek twists his face away, and Caleb loses sight of his expression.

“Don’t,” Essek gasps. His cock fills against his hip, just a bit, and Essek drives his hips back onto Ludinus, quick and rough, too rough for any enjoyment of his own, surely. 

Ludinus fucks up into Essek. It is deeply strange to see his own face twist in another’s expression of desire, to see his body was being used for unwanted purposes. 

Caleb loses time, deaf and blind.

\--

When he gathers his wits again, Essek is cleaning himself at the basin in the room, his movements slow. The Martinet is gone.

Caleb watches Essek breathe, in and out, and then put his clothing together, bit by bit. The illusion goes back on. He is a traitor, and he lied to them, and he caused the deaths of thousands by his actions, and he looks very, very alone, adrift on a black sea. 

Caleb drops Frumpkin’s vision. Back in his body, his hands shake. He clenches them to fists until he hears the lapping of the waves against the docks again.


	2. Chapter 2

The sunlight of Nicodranas is cutting when Caleb blinks back to his body. Beauregard is looking at him expectantly. “Well?”

He does not know what to say. The half-dark of the hold presses in on him even in the rawness of the sunlight.

“Beauregard. I need to confirm something. Please—trust me on this one, Beauregard, I beg of you. I will tell you all of it later.”

Beauregard jerks back, surprised. She gives him a flat look.

“It changes nothing for the negotiations. They will go forward as planned, as far as I know. It just—there are complications.”

“Complications. With this Desran Thane guy. Who suddenly appeared here, with no apparent connection to anyone, except Ludinus Da'leth.” Her face twists. “Fuck, Caleb. I want to believe that you have a good reason for this.”

Caleb swallows. She sees him all too clearly, and it is a difficult blessing.

Beauregard scrubs her face and looks up to the clear Nicodranas sky, her brow set, her eyes bright. “Fuck. Go do what you need to do. But don’t cut us out of the loop, Caleb. We need to know what you found out.”

His throat is thick. “I won’t. Thank you.”

She swings her arms back and forth, taking long, shuddering breaths.

“It’s Essek, isn’t it,” she says, quiet and sudden. “Someone you know, someone whose involvement with the Cerberus Assembly would be unexpected—so not one of your old friends. Someone you thought you knew.”

Caleb looks at the far ships. Frumpkin is making his way back, swinging between ship spars. “Ja.”

“Fuck.” She scrubs her face again. “What a fucking mess. I liked him, Caleb, I knew he was shifty, I knew he had done shitty things, but I still liked him, and he came over to our hot tub, and he had cocktails with us, and—and, what the fuck did he do?” Her throat works. “I feel so—so fucking dumb for trusting him. I didn’t even know I trusted him, just a little. Some Inquisitor I am.”

“I trusted him, too, I think. On some complicated level. We are very alike, he and I.” He closes his eyes. Essek’s quick, barely-controlled breathing is still in his ears.

“Give me something, Caleb.” Beauregard never sounds pleading. It shakes something deep within him to hear her so. “I can’t—I need to know. You must have some reason to keep the details from me, but—"

“Essek bears some responsibility for this war. He is colluding with the Assembly. But Ludinus Da'leth, he—he has done Essek a grievous wrong in connection with that.” He looks down. “How do you square away such an accounting? And are we the ones who must do so?”

“Gods. Whatever it is, we have to do something. Probably starting with punching Ludinus Da'leth in the throat. And Essek—I don’t know. He needs to be held accountable for whatever his role in this was. But it starts with knowing what happened. Getting him out of whatever mess he’s mired himself in.” She goes steely. “I trust you, Caleb. If you say that there’s something here that you need to work out, fine. But bring this back to us. Let us work this out together.”

“I will.”

She softens. “Do you—do you need me there? Are you going to be safe? If he hurts you, Caleb—you don’t know what he’ll do, if he gets desperate.”

He scoops Frumpkin up and swings him onto her shoulder. “If anything happens, I will use Frumpkin to let you know.”

She grimaces. “Ugh. Does he have to be a monkey for this? Honestly, I like the cat better.”

“Better than an owl, yes?”

“Oh, fuck you.”

—

He finds Desran Thain in the antechamber of the party.

It is a simple enough matter to cut him apart from the crowd. He is already standing apart, a glass held in his hand.

“You have me at a disadvantage. I don’t think we’ve met before, sir,” Thain says. His smile is thin, strained at the edges.

Caleb is so tired of masks, tired of subterfuge.

“Come with me a moment. I believe we have something we should speak of.” It is brusque, clumsy, but Caleb is too tired to refine it. He takes the glass from Thain’s grasp and sets it aside.

There are alcoves with curtains in the hallway, the kind that invites lovers to linger in the half-dark of enchanted candles. It feels like cruel mockery to pull Thain into this space meant for light-hearted trysts.

Thain does not say anything. He could have fled many times over, excused himself, teleported from this place, crushed Caleb to dust. He wonders if Essek is resigned to this. If he wanted to be found.

He clasps Essek’s wrists and reaches for a dispel.

“Please drop this pretense, Essek.”

Essek flinches back from him, and Caleb remembers his image under Essek, the mirror of his hands bruising tight on Essek’s thighs. He cannot bring himself to form the words for the spell, to strip Essek of this disguise unwillingly.

“Please do not try to leave.” He means it to sound like a threat, but it comes out as an entreaty. “I will release you, but please—if you hold any fondness for us in your heart at all, please stay and talk with me. With us, later, if you are willing. We all deserve to know what it is you are doing.”

Essek’s eyes are wide, flickering down to his hands, then to Caleb’s face. He looks too much as he did at Ludinus’s feet, and Caleb lets go of him, feeling sick to his stomach.

Essek drops the spell. He looks much the same as he always does under the disguise: the neat line of his hair, the straight hang of his cloak, every part of him sharp enough to cut. Brittle. He folds his hands together, keeping them clearly in view, and does not make any move for his components. Caleb is overcome with relief. He would not know what to do, if he had to stop him. He is shamefully glad he does not have to make the choice.

“Do they know? The rest of your friends?” Essek says.

Caleb swallows. “No. Not yet, although Beauregard has pieced some of it together, because she is very clever.” He picks at the fine embroidery of his tunic. “Do not ask me to keep this from them.”

Essek’s shoulders sag. “No, I suppose I can’t.”

He feels foolish for having trusted this man on some level, even while knowing that they were playing the same game with each other. It perhaps made him even easier to—not trust, but predict him, perhaps, thinking him a known quantity. He thought that he knew the game they played with each other, each a seduction for their own ends, but Essek had been doing something else altogether.

“Did you start the war knowingly?” Caleb says. It sounds almost vicious, pleading to his own ears. “Were the lives of others an acceptable cost, when this plot started?”

Essek’s gaze darts aside. “The war—the war was going to occur, regardless. I say that not to absolve myself. I had simply thought it—inevitable.” 

Essek swallows. He continues, speaking of the beacons, speaking of a plot decades in the planning, speaking of treason and betrayal and war. It spills from him without much prompting, the waters of a still lake pushing through the cracks of a dam, threatening to become an uncontrolled torrent.

He stops, suddenly. Caleb can almost see his quick mind working in the flicker of his eyes, his ears flicking back. “How did you come to know of this? I mean no disrespect, but I was—ah. Thorough in my work to dissimulate my traces.”

Caleb thinks about lying. About saying that they pieced it together from other evidence. But he needs truth from this, however painful. “Your meeting with Ludinus Daleth, this afternoon.”

Essek’s eyes go wide. All of him is drawn tight, tight enough to shatter. “Ah. I see.”

Caleb lets the silence hang, to see where Essek wants to take this. But Essek is still, his gaze slightly over Caleb’s shoulder, his throat working with unsaid words.

He lied to all of them, started a war for the sake of his curiosity and precipitated the deaths of thousands, and he is caught so cruelly in this web of his own making. Caleb wants to cut him free of it, to show him there are options beyond this ruthless use of himself.

“I know what it is like to use the body as a tool,” Caleb says. “I did the same, once.”

Essek draws himself up, his shoulders straightening with the implication of his mantle. For a moment, he is untouchable. Alone.

“Ludinus did not make me betray my country, nor start a war," Essek says. "That, I did on my own, for my own reasons. I initiated what you saw with that man of my own accord.”

Caleb doesn’t know what to say. He recognizes this vicious desperation to find control, to find agency.

“Are you still consorting with him willingly?” The answer is obvious, written in the painful, resigned reluctance with which Essek gave his body. It’s cruel to ask him. But Caleb needs to hear something true out of him.

Essek falters, his shoulders dropping.

“I aim to find a way to extricate myself from this, if that is what you are asking.” Essek’s eyes look weary, flat. He stills, then turns his head aside, his expression unreadable. “Did you—ah. Did you witness all of it?”

Caleb doesn’t know what would be less cruel: to deny witnessing this degradation, or to press further into this purpling bruise.

“I saw him use my form to further cause you distress,” he says, finally.

“Ah.” Essek turns aside, his expression unreadable. “I apologize that you had to witness that. I understand if it made you uncomfortable.”

Caleb does not know what to say.

Essek casts his gaze aside. He brushes his fingers, long and fine, along the heavy drape of the velvet curtains. His words spill like water from a cracked jug.

“I thought it would get me what I wanted. Or some semblance of it, at least. I am reasonably attractive, by most standards. It’s useful. People do stupid things for the attention of someone they find enticing. I am not one especially given to sexual matters, and it seemed like a good trade: an act that does not matter much to me in exchange for knowledge that I craved more than breath itself.”

Essek gives a detached, thoughtful look.

“He would give me rare Empire texts on magic to read, at the beginning. I would page through them with his spend between my thighs and his sweat still cooling on my body, and it seemed like an acceptable exchange. He fucked me while I read, once. He was amused by it. That I could be so enticed by knowledge he found relatively commonplace.”

Caleb thinks of Essek, his body bent over a desk or spilled over sheets, clutching at the scraps of knowledge given to him. Of what he would once have done himself to grasp more knowledge.

He thinks of when Essek gave him spells: they were an enticement, a favor, but one that he had offered cleanly. Whatever his wrongs, Caleb cannot help but be thankful for that.

“I wondered, at first, if this exchange of needs was what companionship entailed. I don’t think he ever saw it as such.”

Caleb’s chest goes tight. “I hope—I hope that we have at least shown you a little of what companionship can be.”

Essek smiles. It’s small and sad. “Yes. I thank you for that. It was good, while it lasted.”

Anger swells in Caleb’s chest. “Why do you say that? This does not need to be the end of it. Your circumstances can change. You can change.”

Essek laughs, short and vicious. His fingers fingers together, his knuckles going white.

“I would be happy to never have his touch on me again. But it is something I must extricate myself from carefully. The best thing you can do for me is to continue working towards your goal of ending the war. I do not want you tangled in this as well.” His voice falters. “I only regret betraying you all before I even knew you existed. You were—I didn’t expect you.”

Caleb twists his hand around his own wrist.

“I have to tell my friends what you did. I do not know if you want me to tell them the full context. I think it is. Relevant to the circumstances in which you made this deal. But I do not want to take this choice from you.”

Essek’s jaw works. “My circumstances are not an excuse, nor justification for the choices I made. I went into this clear-eyed.” He ducks his head. “I thought I knew what I was doing. Had weighed the risks and found them equivalent to the possible rewards.”

The feverish burn in Caleb's chest makes him stutter, makes his words tumble over each other.

“This plot, this bargain—however freely you acted, they held your life over you. If this plot were to be discovered, you would be executed, yes? And they would face—what, political embarrassment? And to press you into this gross violation, as well—you are responsible for many things, Essek Thelyss, but this is not one of them.”

Essek is very still.

“May I touch you?” Caleb says. He needs to have Essek understand, needs to connect. Words are not enough. He feels bitter that this, too, has been ruined, made raw.

“Please,” Essek says at once. “Yes. I. I do not want him to hold any power over you.”

He reaches out, slow. Cups Essek’s cheek, taking care to keep his touch open and light. Essek shudders at his touch. His eyes fall closed, his shoulders sagging. His chin tips up, just a fraction: enough to bare his throat.

Caleb wonders if this too is seduction, a deliberate vulnerability to entice him into thinking Essek helpless. To ensure that he walk away with his life. If it is, it is too desperate to deny.

It burns keenly to be so betrayed and so connected in one stroke.

“I want you to live,” he whispers, finding his voice hoarse. “I want you to live freely, freely enough to reckon with the weight of this. You are drowning, and I would have you breathe.”

Essek crumples on himself.

“Come. Speak with the rest our friends. Do not run from us, please.” He hopes that Essek takes it as the entreaty is it.

It is a long moment before Essek grasps his hand, pressing his palm into his skin, reaching back.

It feels like so little. It is enough. It has to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost a year later, I write a follow-up to this? idk folks, all I want to write is Essek and Caleb being complicated and hopelessly entangled, apparently.


End file.
